In promoting his upcoming film, Objectified, a documentary maker published a photo (above) of Jony Ive from “inside Apple’s design facilities.”

Naturally, tech bloggers the world over will examine the photo in detail in the hope that Apple slipped up and left something in the photograph that reveals their next “sooper seekrit” product. Rumors and speculation will run rampant. After all, if every Chinese newspaper or two-bit tech pundit or analyst publishing nonsensical information becomes grist for the rumor mill, then certainly an actual photograph of “mad scientist” Ive’s lair should give us material for months.

I’m getting ahead of the curve to reveal that, after close inspection of the photograph, I can report on Apple’s latest cool new device. No doubt they thought it was too far back to appear in the photo. The fools! And now I can scoop all the rumor-mongers and post it myself. Remember, you read it here first…

Look closely at the picture above. Do you see anything “unusual”? It’s hard to notice, but there it is, hanging on the back wall in the top right corner of the picture. Below is a zoomed view of the photograph.

The blurry zoom doesn’t tell us much, but I processed the photograph through numerous filters to reveal a clearer picture of the next great Apple thing. Obviously, I cannot publish the processed photos for fear of reprisal from Apple’s legal department, but I can “speculate” on what I might have seen with no fear of repercussions.

Here’s what I’ve been able to gather about this new device:

• It’s round, with an unusual graphic interface. It looks nothing like Mac OS X or the iPhone.
• The outer circle appear to be “numbered” in some manner. Who knows what use this is put to, perhaps it’s the number of open windows or apps?
• There does not appear to be any “cursor” or prompt of any kind. Rather, there are two “interface bars” (my name, Apple will no doubt trademark a cool term for these).
• The “interface bars” differ in that one is longer than the other, but it’s unclear the purpose of either.
• There is a third “interface bar,” but unlike the others it is thin and red. One wonders if it somehow “sweeps” the circular interface, perhaps a real-time monitoring tool?
• It’s hard to gage size, but it appears to have roughly the footprint (in cubic inches) of the existing MacBook.
• That it’s a portable device is obvious not only by its size, but also the fact that it’s hanging on a wall and there is no power cable.

Any further speculation would go too far. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the Chinese press and a couple of analysts to join me. Meanwhile, I stop short of trying to guess what this new device will actually do, or to take a stab at its hardware specifications.

When will we know exactly what this device is for? Only time will tell.